Mostly this is fine, except when tiefling spells come out to play.

However. Things all change when Gwendolyn is born. Because they have tiefling friends yes, they know tieflings that's all fine, but this is their sister, what if they hurt her, what if they mess up, FRIENDS HELP US

And so of course everyone bands together to make sure Gwen feels the most loved only to find out she is the most Evil Gremlin Child of the lot of them

(this is why Percy takes her under his wing, to try to curtail that a little and make sure she never does a Him)

AWWWWWWWWWWW OH MY GODDDDDDDDDD

you are SO RIGHT and you should SAY IT!!! the de rolo and hyrdis clans are those family friends that get mistaken for actual family all the time. whitestone castle is TERRORIZED by the band of quarter elves and tieflings that thunder through the halls, and no one stops them because their parents are just so damn happy that they're happy, because they know that the bickering and rivalries are signs of good, happy childhoods. and it's all they could have wanted for their children

AND OH GOD GWEN,,, THEY GET SO NERVOUS,,,,, THEY WANT TO KEEP HER SAFE,,,,,,,,, the kashra kids switching into tiefling babyproof mode, and being their for gwen alongside her siblings, and she feels so loved. and that constant love and KNOWLEDGE of it gives her free reign to be a Little Shit, but also freedom to tell them when she's upset by some of the town whispers or when her horns hurt or when the nightmares are too much. she's so loved and i'm going to cry about it and zahra and vex probably are too, as the outcast children they were

(he sees a fellow dastardly mischief soul and Shuts That Down So Quick. and i LOVE HIM SO MUCH)

Yessss, let me go on about my new blorbos, yesssss. More about sleep in general than the Sleep spell, but it is canon setting and not an AU!

Zahra doesn't tend to have nightmares. She hasn't since she made her pact with Sirius, and meditating under the moon before she sleeps has always soothed her enough to fend off many of the worst memories of her childhood.

Besides. Her father was a shit - she knows this, and she knows his justifications. It's almost easier, really, knowing it was all due to him and his own bullshit, that it was never due to her - it's not like she asked to be a tiefling, though she wouldn't give it up for anything - and truly, if anyone has the evil inclination of the hells, it was her father and not her.

Still - she's not without them completely, they're just rare. And, moreover, they're only nightmares - not the kind of creeping bad dream that echoes painfully into the waking world. Generally she wakes and remembers reality and is fine.

Kash isn't so lucky.

He sleeps fitfully - it hadn't bothered him to take any watch on their first job together; he woke easily no matter the time, but always seemed tired in addition to his grumpiness. Spending more time with him only makes it more obvious: some mornings Kash joins her for breakfast with deep bags beneath his eyes, the expression of someone who's barely slept at all.

She knows better than to pry. She knows more than most people do about Kash's history and she thinks that's more than enough to guess. Especially given his behaviour: it's clear his experiences left him deeply and lastingly scarred and where she's worked to process it and move forwards - to be free just as her Patron is - she doesn't think Kash has even tried.

Then again, given the seeming omnipresence he was taught to believe of his goddess, she's not that surprised. What point is there trying to heal when one will only be hurt again?

Still, it surprises her, as she and Kash get closer, how easily he sleeps in her arms. She thinks it's an extension of his general ease with her, the tacit reassurance born of the fact she saved his life: he knows he's safe with her, because she has proven she will fight for him. He knows he's safe with her, because she's gone out of her way to ensure his wellbeing.

Still - some nights are rougher than others. For all her lack of nightmares, she does tend to sleep lightly - a childhood under her father's watchful eye ensured it - and so she stirs easily those few times Kash's sleep is disturbed.

"I'm here," she murmurs, in that space between waking and sleeping, when she feels Kash stir. Her hand finds his scarred arm, her tail, where it's coiled over her hip and his, reaches for his wrist. His calluses graze against her skin, flexing tight before relaxing at her warmth. "I'm here," she repeats and nuzzles his neck. "You're safe, Kash."

And, without waking further, he settles easily back into sleep.

She can't prevent his nightmares, not anymore than she can prevent her own, but she can ensure he never has to wake from them alone.

Perc'ahlia is predictable, of course, but how about Kyssandra, Dessandra, and Kashra?

Perc'ahlia: A+++ with 20 bonus points because Percy is a tryhard and not only aced the class but did all the material for bonus marks they graduate with a Honors in My Heart

Kyssandra: A+! I started writing that gift for Burr and i just. They're so cute. Their respective traumas butt up in ways that take a bit to settle and leave room for wounds to open before they stitch them closed. And they're so Baby, Cass is trying to be mature and a leader and Kynan is trying to be better but they're teenagers and deserve to blush and giggle and I think Whitestone needs that cuteness. Also. He's HER BODYGUARD and he FAILED, VECNA TOOK HER AND SHE DIED. SHE DIED. HE'S RESPONSIBLE FOR THE DEATHS OF *BOTH* DE ROLOS. I JUST. AGJVJKBMBKB

Dessandra: B+ look. I get why you like it, I can see the appeal, but there’s something so... melancholy to them that I can only take in small doses. Dessandra is the more mature and aching slow to bloom love to Kyssandra's tentative puppy love and more obvious crshes becoming something More. Regency vs knight-and-lady, and Perc'ahlia have a monopoly on my regency vibes niche. Also a lot of Dessandra is, admittedly, your HCs and slight AU - when you write it, I froth at the mouth, otherwise I'm like 'aw, cute' and move on.

Kashra: B+ - I can't get a solid handle on their vibes? Kash is slippery for my head and I'm finding Zahra is too. Like the above - I learn a lot more about them as I read your takes, and it’s really cute, but not a ship I'd seek out in my own time. Betting this'll change as you write more of them though (Congratulations on the new blorbo! 👏👏👏)

One of the Kashra kids has a bat familiar/companion. It was latched onto Trinket's fur when they returned from a patrol, one wing broken after one of the arboreal wildcats around Whitestone got to it and... well, the Kashra kids take after their parents. They don't leave the needful to suffer alone: they try to help.

Percy used to make music boxes for his sisters. Cassandra still has hers. On the five year anniversary of Whitestone being freed, Percy makes her another (it's partly a trial run for some of his ideas for the clocktower, but it's also a harkening back to their childhood. After all, they're healing).

They do end up setting up a library in Whitestone. With Percy there, there's soon a reasonable printing press as well, and when Vesper starts shadowing Cass in the Chamber of Whitestone, she also starts making a little newsletter to go around. An early iteration of a newspaper.

Some nobles are shitty about Gwen and the Kashra kids. Some of them have tiefling kids of their own that they're ashamed of. Given Zahra and Vex, any time Gwen and the Kashra kids get an INKLING of this, they find a way to befriend said kid and get them free of their parent, if they want it.

Vax watches from beyond the divine gate. He's so proud of all of them.

There's snowdrops around the raven tree in Zephrah every spring. Keyleth never quite gets over it.

The women do periodic holidays any time any of them seems to be getting too mopey. Keyleth is getting too buried in work? Beach holiday. Cass is falling back in bad habits? Beach holiday. Vex is having a trauma anniversary. BEACH HOLIDAY. These are usually organised by Zahra, who is far and away the most on top of her issues, and Pike, who loves springing a surprise on upset friends.

Sometimes Kima and Allura join them. These rapidly turn into cocktail holidays that result in needing at least two days more holiday for "recovery" time when they return.

Percy learns how to make earplugs, not for himself, but so Vex can recover from those hangovers.

AWWWW the kashra kids going full goth aesthetic good for them <33 bats are SO CUTE so this is PERFECT

MUSIC BOXES,,,, something beautiful percy can make......... something beautiful that makes something beautiful, and can make people happy.................... and fuck, imagine him making music boxes for the babies too, and then giving them More once they grow old enough to have things like favorite songs or genres

vesper being a pioneer of something in her own right is SO COOL!! whitestone would end up as the origin of so many little modern thingamabobs, wouldn't it. the ruling family are all braniacs

THOSE NOBLES ARE GETTING DECKED!! i have headcanons about an orphanage/shelter/care system in whitestone that zahra and vex help out with (and i can't for the life of me remember if this is a headcanon inspired by someone else or of it's from canon somewhere) and i imagine it's only because they can't take in all the kids that they want to. and this is the next best thing they can give them, some place safe where they can be protected from the family that tried to - or that did - hurt them. no child deserves that, and vex n zahra (and the rest of the hydris-de rolo conglomerate) will love them twice as much and twice as fiercely to make up for how they were treated

I MISS VAX SO MUCH AND I'VE BEEN SO EMOTIONAL ABOUT HIM RECENTLY SHUT UPPPPP he watches over them.... his family and then his nieces and nephews............ even when he doesn't have much of himself left................. the snowdrops..............................

GNERKJGNEKGN THEY WILL DO ANYTHING FOR A NON-TRAUMATIC BEACHDAY AND THEY DESERVE IT!!! AND KIMALLURA TAGGING ALONG <333 MY FAVE NPC COUPLE

It's not a spoiler! It's kind of a core part of the story, their bonding.

At least as I have it figured out for my fic, Zahra saves Kash's life on a job, they get back from the job, get paid and... Kash is sticking at her side. He owes her his life, he is determined to pay that back, she's kind of stuck with him.

So, just as Zahra did kind of naturally with Vex, she aims to Bond with Kash. Starts gently asking about him, teasing out little facts and details - minor ones, mostly, like favoured foods or hobbies - and makes it clear that if they're going to be working together they should be friendly! They should bond.

So it doesn't come directly from Zahra saving his life or something they deliberately sat down to discuss but rather something Zahra kind of... purposefully set about teasing out of him and sharing with him, in part by letting it come up naturally in conversation, in part by sharing related experiences, in part by observing something and asking about it. Gently coaxing him to open up and share things about himself, sometimes by sharing things about herself.

11. What scene are you most hyped for this chapter/fic?

To show people?

Well. Currently, this fic is just one long doc - I'll separate it into chapters once I actually uh... get an important part of the first chapter figured out, because right now the fic is a string of scenes in roughly correct order but missing a lot of connective tissue. The lead in to Zahra saving Kash's life is giving me trouble. But anyway - this covers the whole fic, so that makes it a little trickier to pick just one because there's kind of a lot?

It's like... every time Kash takes one more step towards healing, those are moments I'm eager to share. Rather as with Ripley's Assistant I want to show a path to healing in all it's messiness, and that means that there's not really any one singular moment that is a tipping point - it's a whole lot of little things slowly shifting until the scree slope cascades down in a rockslide.

So I think... it's probably.

No. Gosh. This is hard to pick.

I wouldn't call it hyped but I am looking forward to sharing the scene where Kash and Zahra talk about him kissing Keyleth - and prompting his apology to her. That was one that actually gets quite deep into his head and some of his issues and it was fun to pick apart - and I think it'd be helpful to show people how not every bad thing is done with malice. It is very often ignorance and lack of experience.

I think I'm also very eager to share the parts of Kash and Zahra getting together, even though that's scattered over a few scenes, really, and is a good chunk of the fic itself - it's a lot of little steps and why I think I'm more hyped for the fic itself as a whole than any one scene!

Other than that - I do like how Kash deals with Vesh in this fic versus how he copes in the backstory fic. I'm really looking forward to sharing that contrast.